The Worst Thing You Taste Today
The Worst Thing
You Taste Today
Liko slid onto a stool, sat straight and laced his fingers like a teacher’s pet.
“Well, hello,” the bartender said.
“Are you Cora?”
“I am.”
He raised a hand grandly. “Tempt me with fiber.”
“Are you picky?”
“Not at all.”
She pulled him a shot of the beetroot cider. “Practically nobody likes this,” she said. “But I start newcomers off with it because things can only get better.”
The brew was a beautiful ruby red, but Liko took a sip and shook his head.
“Yeah, it’s dirt,” Cora said.
“Carbonated dirt.”
“Filthy. And not in a good way.”
“People like this?”
“It has a little fan base, which is why we keep it on tap.” She took the glass away and dashed it down the sink. “That’ll be the worst thing you taste today.”
Cora set up a flight and pulled Liko five samples. “This is the house dry. This is the house bone dry.”
“Local apples?”
“All from Kulleseid’s Orchard. This is a blackberry lemon shandy—look at the color on that, huh? Dudes dismiss it as a chick’s drink but they order it all the time. This is our citrus hopping mad. And this is the lemon ginger. It’s got a nice kick. All of these make superb slushies, by the way.”
Cora set a small bowl of crispy roasted kale leaves on the bar, then went to put the order in. Liko scrolled his phone and crunched away, discreetly licking his fingertips. Cora came back and set a thick stack of napkins down with a wink.
“Like those?”
“Mmhm,” Liko grunted behind a fist. “They taste coconutty.”
She nodded. “This batch was made with coconut oil. I’m a purist—I like plain olive oil. But the real trick is to oversalt them just a hair.”
Liko would’ve eaten them with no salt at all. He tried to be suave as he ran a finger around the edge of the bowl, catching the last fragments. Next Cora brought out a ramekin of roasted cabbage Caesar salad. “Cabbage is so good for you, it almost doesn’t matter what you smother it with.”
Every bite exploded with parmesan, lemon and some kind of umami magic bass note. “Nom,” Liko said, scooping the tangy squares out with a bit of toasted bread. “All the nom.”
“Try a sip of the lemon-ginger cider between bites,” Cora said, sounding like a delighted grandmother. “It’s a great pairing.”
Next was a half-dozen truffled Brussel sprouts. “Again, doesn’t matter how you eat your sprouts as long as you eat them.”
An oblong dish with roasted asparagus spears. A little salad of arugula and blueberries, dressed with balsamic. Cora kept the bread coming because Liko needed it to mop up everything in sight. A splash of cider fell on the bar and he mopped that up too.
A thought flitted in and out between bites: I’m so happy right now.
“And the pièce de résistance,” Cora said, setting down another oval dish. “Roasted carrots with thyme, lemon zest, burrata, balsamic drizzle and pine nuts. I can eat this all day, every day.”
It was out of this world. Everything fresh, local, simply and beautifully prepared.
Delicious as fuck but not overly filling.
Liko shamelessly stuffed his face but when every crumb was gone and the plates glistened, he felt light and keen.
If he’d skipped the ciders, he could’ve gone straight to the gym and set a couple PRs.
“I faced down temptation and lost,” he said. “But I won.”
“How’d you like the flight? Any favorites?”
They were all good, but the bone dry was his top pick, followed by the lemon ginger. Cora made him a slushy for the road with the blackberry-lemon shandy. He paid the bill with pleasure and left a generous tip for his temptress.
“See you again soon,” she said.
“Oh, you will.” He shook her hand. Growing up, he’d often seen his father shake hands with bartenders, waiters and restaurant hosts upon leaving.
It impressed him as a cool, classy thing to do and he adopted the custom.
Around the time he turned fifteen, Kyle started doing it too, which touched Liko to the paternal bone.
The thought held the door as Liko left the Pub. He pulled on his sunglasses. He paused for a moment of mindful gratitude, sipping his slushy. What luxury, a place like this with food like that, all a mere walk across the street.
Schoenfeld’s field crew was off on Sunday and the spa was closed.
Only the cluck and crow of poultry and the quacking of ducks accompanied Liko back up the driveway.
The house was empty, so Liko wandered around looking for Dane.
Past the pool, which Dane said would be opened on Memorial Day weekend.
The impressive kitchen garden with ten raised beds.
Dane had only planted four this year, saying he was keeping it simple.
A miniature orchard boasted three apple trees, two peaches and a pear.
Some jokester had hung a sign on the pear tree reading, Help Wanted: Partridge. Inquire Within.
Liko continued up to the fields, where he found Dane working on a sort of prone trolley.
A skinny piece of plywood attached to a crude axle on wheels, which were spaced to fit in the dirt between rows of plants.
Dane lay on his stomach, fiddling at the ground immediately beneath him, then rolling forward, bit by bit.
Three ducks waddled alongside, eating what he tossed away.
“Well here’s a rather ingenious contraption,” Liko said.
“Like it?” Dane said, taking out one of his earbuds. “We stole it from the Dutch. It’s how they manage giant fields of tulips. Saves your back a ton of grief.”
“What are you managing here?”
“Carrots. They get sown direct into the soil but you have to thin them out. Everyone hates this job but I love it.”
“I love the organic cleanup crew.”
“Ducks are superb pest control,” Dane said. “They get hired out to Kulleseid’s Orchard, just to eat snails. Right, babydoll?” He smoothed the head of one of the ducks and she ate from his fingers.
Liko watched, fascinated. He knew next to nothing about growing things.
He lived in a gated community and the HOA had strict rules about landscaping.
Which was fine by him. He could just about handle a few ornamental shrubs and trees.
He had a whiskey barrel at the base of his front steps.
If it occurred to him, he stuck pansies in it in spring, impatiens in summer, and mums in autumn.
Sometimes he wrapped his yard’s small pine tree in lights but since Kyle died, why should he bother?
Yet after the spectacular lunch he’d just ingested, he looked around the farm with appreciative eyes, thinking he should bother.
“Can I try?” he asked.
Dane got him his own trolley and showed him how he wanted the carrot seedlings thinned. The two men worked prone, side by side, chatting easily. When one of the ducks hopped on Liko’s trolley, nestled by his hip and put her head on his back, he felt slightly anointed.
“I think I’m officially Duck Dad,” he said.
Dane laughed. “It’s a good look on you.”
Liko pulled a seedling that had put down quite a respectable root. “I legit have never seen a carrot pulled straight from the ground.”
“Dude, when I first came to this place, I knew nothing about carrots. I knew nothing about food…”